Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit

Randolph is an architect, and he lives in an apartment block with his wife Rebecca, and their two children. They live a happy, normal life, until the basement tenant, Dieter Tiberius, accuses them of sexual abuse towards their children, and starts to hound the wife with poems and accusatory letters. Their life starts to fall apart. They seek legal advice, but no-one can help them - not the police, nor the landlord, nor social services. Things become so fraught and desperate, that Randolph decides to take matters into his own hands.

All his life, Randolph has grown up surrounded by guns. His father always had them in the house, and Randolph was continually afraid that his dad would use them on him or his brother in a fit of rage. But it is now that Randolph turns to his dad for help.

The story sounds frightening enough as fiction, but the book is actually semi-autobiographical. The author has based the story on something that actually happened to  him in real life. The book is also about class war, the justice system, and politics in Berlin during the 70s and 80s. In fact, I'd say that more than just background information, it takes over the whole story. There is more in the book about family relationships and class wars than there is about the actual incident. It's also a shame about the cover - it looks like just another crime thriller novel, and it doesn't mention on the cover that it's based on a true story.

I quite enjoyed the story, but I got a bit bored with the political argument sections, and I also got so frustrated with the lack of help that Randolph and his family were getting in the face of such harrassment.